Emerald ash borer found in central Illinois

The emerald ash borer — a pest responsible for destroying millions of ash trees nationwide — has now been founded in half of Illinois’ 102 counties.

Officials at the Illinois Department of Agriculture announced Friday confirmed cases in residential areas of Peoria and Tazewell counties.

The beetles were found in Dunlap and Peoria in Peoria County, and in the village of Minier in Tazewell County.

Both counties are outside the 49-county quarantine area where infestations had already been confirmed.

“These finds are significant because they occurred outside the boundaries of the state quarantine that was established to prevent the spread of the beetles,” Warren Goetsch, chief of environmental programs for the Department of Agriculture, said in a statement.

Up to now, said Goetsch, new infections found this year were within the quarantine area. The quarantine is intended to prevent the spread through movement of invested wood and tree nursery products, and through the sale of firewood.

Larvae of the metallic-green beetles burrow into the bark of ash trees, causing the trees to starve and eventually die.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates 250 million ash trees have been killed since the first beetles were discovered in Detroit in 2002.

State Department of Agriculture spokesman Jeff Squibb said Peoria and Tazewell counties would automatically be added to the quarantine, and that it was likely other nearby counties would be added in coming months.

“Later this year, after our trapping work has been completed, the department plans to formally amend the quarantine,” Squibb said in an email, “and will consider adding additional counties that haven’t yet had a confirmed detection but are likely to be infested because of their proximity to counties that have had a confirmation.”